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five supernumerary days of the primitive year, we may presume, was early propagated among the Hebrews and Israelites. Abraham was reckoned skilful astronomer by Berosus: and he visited Egypt about 29 years before the reign of Assis, when these five days were inserted in the Egyptian Calendar, and might therefore have imparted this discovery to the Egyptians, or learned it from them. And Moses, afterwards, "who was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians," (Acts vii. 22.) we may be assured, was not deficient in this respect. Indeed, his reformation of the calendar, and revival of the sacred year, which began about the vernal equinox; the institution of the anniversary feast of the passover, by a perpetual law, to be celebrated "on the 14th day of the first month, at even," or about the full moon, which fell upon, or next after, the day of the vernal equinox, Exod. xii. 6—27, required no superficial knowledge of the revolutions of the sun and moon.

IV. By repeated observations, it was at length found, that the solar or tropical year exceeded 365 days by about six hours, or quarter of a day. The Egyptian priests of Thebes claimed the merit of this further discovery also, according to Diodorus, and even so early as the time of the second Hermes, according to Strabo. Still, however, they never introduced this fractional excess into their civil year, because they held all intercalations to be unlucky; and their priests were bound by oath not to intercalate either month or day which they might change into a festival.

Hence this redundancy was confined to the priests and to the astronomers among the Egyptians, nor was it communicated to the Greeks until long after its discovery. Herodotus, who travelled into Egypt, was ignorant of it. Plato and Eudoxus, who resided a long time there, afterwards learned it, as a great mystery, from the priests of Heliopolis and Memphis, and imported it into Greece, and thereby introduced the intercalation of an entire day every fourth year, when the Olympic games were celebrated.

The astronomical skill of the ancient Egyptians appears conspicuously in their celebrated cycle of 25 years, for adjusting the lunar and solar motions together, accommodated to their civil year of 365 days; which was more exact than the cycle of 19 years accommodated to the Julian year of 365 days. For 25 Egyptian years contain 9125 days, which exceed 309 luna

tions, amounting to 9124 days, 22 hours, 50 minutes, and 50 seconds, according to Mayer's tables*, by only 1 hour, 9 min. 10 sec.; whereas, 19 Julian years, containing 6939 days, 14 hours, 30 min. 3 sec. fall short of 235 lunations, amounting to 6939 days, 16 hours, 31 min. 16 sec. by 2 hours, 1 min. 13 sec. This cycle of 25 years they represented in their symbolical manner, by the fourth part of their aroura, a measure of ground containing 100 cubits square, according to the Egyptian grammarian Horapollo, who flourished about A.D. 380.

Their next and most celebrated cycle for adjusting the civil year to the solar, was the Sothiacal or Canicular period of 1460 solar years, equal to 1461 Egyptian. For since the deficiency of the Egyptian year of 365 days was one day every 4 years, so in 4 × 365=1460 years, it would amount to an entire year. Consequently, in the course of this period, the beginning of the Egyptian year, or the first day of the first month Thoth, shifted its place backwards through all the seasons, until it came round again to the same place. And to this probably the Egyptian priests mysteriously alluded, when they told Herodotus, “that from the reign of their first king Menes, to Sethon, priest of Vulcan, the sun had four times altered his course; that it had twice risen where it now sets, and had twice set where it now rises, and this without producing any change in Egypt; that the productions of the earth had been the same, and that there had not been more disease or mortality than usual. Herodot. B. ii. 142. But according to the ensuing rectification of Egyptian chronology, Menes began to reign about B.C. 2412, and Sethon, B.C. 713. The interval, therefore, of 1700 years included more than the Sothiacal period, and therefore, in the course of it, the sun rose twice, and set twice, in the same degrees of the ecliptic. Thus the relation of the priests was strictly conformable to astronomy, a mere natural occurrence, as they justly represented it, and neither a "falsehood," a "dream," nor a "fable," as it has been idly taxed even by chronologers †.

The Sothiacal period was so denominated from Sothis, the Egyptian name of the Dog-star, and was supposed to have com

See Tables V. VI.

+ Scaliger thus reprobates it: "Missa igitur illa mendacia et somnia Ægyptiorum faciamus." De emend. Temp. p. 198. Stillingfleet ::-"That Egyptian fable in Herodotus," &c. Orig. Sacr. p. 90. And Larcher:-" Quant à moi, je les regarde comme une fable grossiere, imaginée par des gens fort ignorans." Herodot. tom. ii. p. 56. Not. Edit. 1.

menced when its Heliacal rising coincided with the summer solstice. The learned Censorinus says, that the year A.D. 238, in which he wrote his book De die natali, was the hundredth year of the current period; which began, therefore, A.D. 138, and consequently the preceding period; 1460-A.D. 138=B.C. 1322. But in this year the Dog-star rose heliacally on the 20th of July, according to Censorinus and Petavius; and this was also the solstitial day, according to Petavius; or rather the 22d of July, taking into computation the precession of the equinoxes, according to Jackson; so that both very nearly coincided. See Jackson, Vol. ii. p. 7, 75.

It is a curious circumstance, that the Egyptian Sothiacal period, and the Chaldean Nabonassarian, both consisting of 1460 years of 365 days, though they differed in the precise time of their introduction, critically synchronized in the beginnings of their correspondent years. For the Era of Nabonassar, beginning with his reign at Babylon, Feb. 26, B.C. 747, was the 120th year of the Period, which commenced 30 days earlier, March 28, B.C. 867, when the new moon fell on the day of the vernal equinox *. But the same year B.C. 747, was the 576th year of the Sothiacal period, commencing July 20, B.C. 1322, or 1323; during which interval, the Thoth, or beginning of the year, had regraded 144 days, (at the rate of a day in every four years) which, counted backwards from July 20, fell on Feb. 26, B.C. 747, also. This indisputably proves a common origin of the Chaldean and Egyptian astronomy. See Jackson, Vol. ii. p. 76.

There is also a remarkable analogy in the construction of those vast astronomical cycles, on which the Chaldeans, Hindus, and Egyptians, founded their pretensions to an antiquity far beyond the creation of the world, as warranted by the most sober and correct records of sacred and profane history, and which evidently were computed backwards, at later periods, from existing data or elements.

1. A Chaldean period of 432,000 years is mentioned by Syncellus, p. 30, as including the reigns of their first kings; and this is also supposed to be the length of the Cali yuga, or last of the four Indian ages of the world, beginning with the deluge, B. C. 3102, according to the Brahmins of Hindustan. But this period is evidently produced by the multiplication of the two fac

* See the succeeding article of the Era of Nabonassar.

tors, 18 and 24,000, into each other; of which 18 was the Chaldean Saros, or Plinian period of the lunar inequalities, which is performed in 18 years and 11 days, or 223 lunations; and was much esteemed for its accuracy in computing the returns of eclipses, and other phænomena of the moon's motion. See Costard's Astronomy, p. 94. And the other factor was the annus magnus, or grand revolution of the orb or sphere of the fixed stars, in the course of 24,000 years, occasioned by the precession of the equinoxes, at the Hindu rate of 54 seconds of the ecliptic annually*; which differs surprisingly little from 50 seconds, the annual rate of the precession, as determined by the nicest observations and most accurate calculations of modern astronomy, in its present high state of improvement. This cycle, therefore, of 432,000 years, must have been invented since the days of Hipparchus, who first found out the precession of the equinoxes, about B.C. 128, and probably since the Christian era. And the year of the Cali yuga, B. C. 3102, was a remarkable astronomical epoch, when the mean motion of Jupiter was slowest, according to La Place, in his Méchanique Celeste, tom. 3. Another remarkable epoch in the Hindu astronomy is the year A.D. 1491, when the mean motion of Saturn was the most rapid, according to the same profound astronomer.

2. Cicero reprobates the foolish and arrogant pretensions of the Chaldeans to a series of recorded observations of the stars for 470,000 years, in round numbers. Diodorus is more particular, and raises it to 473,000 years, before Alexander's expedition into Asia. The correct number is somewhat more, 473,040 years; the additional 40 years being omitted by Diodorus, as insignificant in so great an amount: upon the same principle, that even the 3000 (fortunately preserved by Diodorus) were omitted by Cicero †. But this correct cycle of 473,040 years was evidently formed by the multiplication of two factors; the square of the Chaldean Saros, 18 x 18-324 years, and the Nabonassarean or Sothiacal period of 1460 years. The square of 18 seems to have been employed, in order to furnish a larger period, approximating more nearly to the true lunar motions than

360 degrees is equal to 21,600 minutes, or to 1,296,000 seconds; which, divided by 54 seconds, the annual precession, gives 24,000 years as the quotient.

†Thus Herodotus states, that the sovereignty of the Assyrians in Upper Asia lasted 520 years; but Diodorus reckons it 500 years in round numbers, dropping the surplus, as being immaterial in respect of the whole amount.

the Saros itself, or rather its deficient value, 18 years, neglecting the 11 days over.

3. The grand Egyptian period of 36,525 years, which was supposed to include the time of the 30 dynasties of Egyptian kings, cited from the Old Chronicle, by Syncellus, was formed, in like manner, by multiplying their Sothiacal period of 1461 years into their lunar cycle of 25 years. It was therefore purely astronomical like the rest.

4. M. Bailly, in his sceptical enquiries into the state of ancient astronomy, observed, that several ancient nations, as the Chaldeans, Egyptians, Indians, and Chinese, though seated at great distances from each other, possessed several astronomical formulæ common to them all. It appeared, also, that all these people employed these rules and formulæ, handed down to them by tradition, as several of our workmen make use of certain mechanical or geometrical rules, without any knowledge of the principles upon which they were originally constructed.

All these observations tend to justify the opinion of Herodotus, "that astronomy, with the gnomon, or sun-dial, and the division of the day into twelve parts, were received by the Egyptians from the Babylonians." B. 2. And that Babylon was the cradle of arts and sciences, which diverged from thence, in every direction, among the more polished nations of antiquity.

In the reign of Giemshid, king of Persia, who was slain by Dahac, king of Media, B. C. 703, a simple and ingenious correction of their civil year of 365 days was introduced, to reconcile it, from time to time, with the sun's course. Every 120 years they intercalated an entire month of 30 days, to compensate for the 120 quarter days, omitted in that time; and consequently 12 such months, in a period of 12 x 120 = 1440 years. This intercalation remained in use till the time of Jesdejird, who was slain, A.D. 632. See Hyde, p. 205.

So late as the time of Herodotus, the Greeks retained the primitive year of 360 days, and every two years they intercalated a month of 30 days. This only made “confusion worse confounded" in their civil year, which thereby consisted of 375 days, receding still further from the sun's course than the primitive year itself! See the conversation of Solon with Cræsus, Herod. B. 1.

Waving the successive corrections of the Greek year, in their cycles of four, eight, twelve, and nineteen years, to be learned

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